Neuropathic Pain

Chronic Constriction Injury is a discrete peripheral nerve injury model, originally described by Bennett and Xie (1988), that closely relates to post-traumatic or postsurgical neuropathic pain in patients. Loose ligation of the sciatic nerve with chromic gut sutures induces local inflammation and intraneural constriction, producing a unilateral peripheral mononeuropathy. This results in robust mechanical and cold allodynia, tactile allodynia, and thermal hyperalgesia, with the pain phenotype persisting for at least 28 days. The model is pharmacologically validated by its responsiveness to clinically relevant neuropathic pain treatments — including pregabalin, duloxetine, naproxen, and morphine — making it a robust and widely used tool for characterizing analgesic candidates targeting peripheral neuropathic pain.

Read the full description: Chronic constriction injury (CCI)

Spared Nerve Injury, first described by Decosterd and Woolf (2000), is a model of peripheral mononeuropathy that can be related to post-traumatic or postsurgical neuropathic pain experienced by patients. It involves ligation and transection of the tibial and common peroneal branches of the sciatic nerve, while the sural nerve is deliberately spared. Mechanical hyperalgesia, mechanical allodynia, and tactile allodynia are typically assessed from Day 3 (rats) and Day 7 (mice) post-surgery to reveal the analgesic potency of test compounds.

Read the full description: Spared nerve injury (SNI)

Trigeminal neuralgia is among the most severe forms of NP, characterized by sudden, shock-like pain along the trigeminal nerve (most often the infraorbital branch). It can result from vascular compression, demyelination, or nerve trauma, closely paralleling injury mechanisms modeled preclinically. Transpharmation offers a chronic constriction injury of the infraorbital nerve (ION-CCI) model, reproducing orofacial mechanical/thermal hypersensitivity for robust translational assessment of trigeminal-mediated pain.

Type 1 diabetes is induced in rats via a single intraperitoneal injection of STZ, a toxin which selectively ablates pancreatic insulin-producing β-cells. By Day 7, animals present with significant hyperglycemia, weight loss, polydipsia, and polyuria; by Day 14, they exhibit mechanical and thermal allodynia, quantified using both von Frey and cold plate tests. The resulting painful neuropathy is alleviated by pregabalin treatment, supporting the model’s pharmacological validity for evaluating novel analgesic candidates against a major, underserved clinical indication.

Read the full description: STZ-induced diabetic neuropathy

In chemotherapy, cumulative dose-limiting toxicity is a major problem due to the painful neuropathy induced by antineoplastic agents. Paclitaxel-induced chronic peripheral sensory neuropathy is modeled via repeated intraperitoneal injections (2 mg/kg x4), with mechanical and cold allodynia. Oxaliplatin-induced neuropathy is generated by a single intraperitoneal injection (10 mg/kg) in both mice and rats and produces mechanical allodynia of similar duration. Both models persist for at least 2–3 weeks and are reversed by pregabalin, supporting their use for evaluating analgesic candidates against dose-limiting CIPN.

Read the full description: Chemotherapy-induced neuropathy (Oxaliplatin/Paclitaxel)